salade cévenole.

This is kind of an attempt to recreate my first taste of duck confit, at the formerly rather more French Place Pigalle in Seattle, probably 1997 or so (it changed owners in 2007). If there's a secret to this salad it's to dress your cabbage with the lemon juice, red wine vinegar, salt, and sugar at least two hours before you want to serve it. By then the cabbage has wilted a little and released some water, making it easier to gauge the overall seasoning. The confit will be salty too remember so don't over doooooo it on the cabbage.

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duck confit salad with red cabbage, arugula and chestnuts.

1/2 red cabbage, sliced thinly
two big fistfuls of arugula
12 roasted chestnuts, shelled and quartered
12 walnuts, toasted and halved
juice of a lemon
4 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 to 2 tbsp walnut oil
1 tsp to 1 tbsp duck fat from the confit
1 tbsp raw sugar

1 or 2 legs duck confit, depending on their size and how duck-centric you want this to be

salt to taste
pepper to taste

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cuisses du canard.

Above: the frills of having a zero-profit record distribution business continue, in the form of more free entertainment, this time from the all-star Ellington band. Last night's sets included a totally unexpected and thoroughly heroic vocal by Mr. Elliptical himself, Michael Vatcher, as well as paint-peeling solos from special guest Peter Evans. And no drinking by me, also pretty heroic if not entirely unexpected.

This morning's breakfast involved the below "Xmas Special" Dirk purchase: 4 confit duck legs for 10 bucks, that's the cheapest game in town ha get it, game, so I'ma 'bout (btw, a totally unintuitive and difficult punctuation for a very natural colloquialism, but I do believe that it's right. You can also say "I'ma do this", so the "a" isn't really the a from "about", it's an a that replaces "going to", I know, I know, but you also know that we think about these things) to go get another can to get me through the dark days of late January. No, you are correct, cans of duck confit are not in the reduced grocery budget, but I'm thinking of it as the €10 I didn't spend on beer last night.

men at work.

Today on the treadmill, after dragging myself swiftly uphill for 45 minutes, I looked down through my tears and sweat at the Accuradar or whatever thingie that demands your age and weight and then tries to make you feel a little better throughout your ordeal by telling you that you're actually burning calories, and it blinkingly announced: 740 calories burned.

Hmm, I thought to myself, gracefully skipping off the treadmill and crashing woozily into the stationary bike adjacent, that's pretty much (pausing to run some calculations) 740 extra calories to play with. I mean, this put me well into negative calories for the day so far. I high-fived myself, and then juuuust before I lost consciouness, I decided I would roast a couple of duck legs, something I haven't ever done before I don't think.

What, you say. And I say yes, that's right: I only really ever buy confit because I'm lazy and it's barely more expensive, or very very occasionally I buy a €9.99 whole frozen duck from the toko, because I don't know how to prepare duck any other way than roasting the whole thing.

Tonight's hands-off adventure involves a very simple Nigel Slater recipe, whom I've never cooked before either as far as I know. Thrilling Adventures.

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roast duck and citrus salad. 

I really thought this was a total disappointment at first. I mean I was doing the as-healthy-as-possible version which didn't involve using any juices from the roasting pan in the salad dressing for example, but it was just unexpectedly...tart yet flat. So I made some brief raspberry noise with my mouth and turned away from it, letting it sit there not being eaten while I did something else, but every time I kept going back to give it one more chance to redeem itself, it got better.

What was happening: most crucially, the watercress was wilting in the citrus juices. But also the two citruses were blending into each other, the duck was soaking up the citrus, the saltiness of the duck was meandering its way through everything else, etc.

So just by letting this sit for 10 or 15 minutes it went from bleh to me eventually pouring the last remnants of the bowl into my mouth (I'm home alone). I'm still not totally sure I'd make it again as written, but it had something going on. I think it probably needed a little sweetness and a little chile. Anyway, it was my first time ever using watercress, I liked it a lot after it wilted.

2 duck legs
salt
pepper
more five-spice than you think you should use

1 orange
1 grapefruit
1 bunch watercress, washed, large stems trimmed

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fatigue.

Imagine you've been at a party, maybe 4 or 5 hours' worth, maybe more, you've had a good time, laughed, eaten, drank, enjoyed/suffered moments of quiet reflection, engaged in deep a deep heartfelt conversation or two, made ridiculous small talk, laughed, eaten, and drank some more, and then suddenly? You have to go home. Immediately.

That's where we are, I think. It's a matter of timing probably more than anything. I stand by our original decision to stay for more than a week: a week would've been rushing things. But it's entirely possible that 10 days would've been perfect.

This is Day 11: we miss our apartment, cats, friends, kitchen, bed, creative utensils, etc. Mara's been away from home for 6 out of the last 9 weeks. I'm tired of trying to cook in a kitchen that's been whittled down to the absolute minimum.

We have eaten Really Poorly when trying to cook here in our lodgings. Like laughably so. Saturday night's dinner was: for me, vegetarian sausage and sauerkraut, abominable; Mara's was tuna noodle penne, except we forgot that we broke the can opener earlier in the day during the disgusting steak and kidney pie experiment, so she was left with celery, onions, and penne. And cheddar, I think, because it doesn't make sense to buy Parmesan here if you're not going to use it all, and we have to leave the fridge as empty as possible when we go.

The rest of the week we've subsisted on coffee, toast, eggs, bananas, mushy peas, carrots, peanut butter, and Pimm's Cups, it's a bit like college. The one exceptional thing I've cooked here has been something I call "duck egg over easy with maple syrup and coarse salt". Yum. And the mushy peas out of a can were OK.

+++

Tonight is dinner at the Harwood Arms, perhaps this will rejuvenate our asses.

Oh, and Happy Anniversary, Baby!
14 years13 years and counting, yo...

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duck, sucka, etc.

When I woke up about an hour ago at 4am, I had a moment of really being happy to see winter. Not that it's terribly cold or anything, but the short days and increasing windiness are starting to assert themselves as unignorable signs that summer is truly not coming back until next year. And this morning's view of dark winter nights came via the pendulum-like swinging of the halogen streetlight suspended just outside our "bedroom" window, rhythmically casting shadows on the ceiling above the bed, and making me glad that I was inside and warm, even though like I said it's not really that cold here yet.

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There's a new addition to the family that I've been meaning to tell you about. It's our first extravagant houseware purchase since I don't know, our couch maybe?













In case the 4:45am lighting isn't revealing enough: it's a freezer. A standalone freezer that in one fell swoop multiplies our existing freezer space by a factor of 10 or so.

Having a useful freezer is such a novel concept to us that upon her arrival we started sounding like a bad Caveman Gets Sent to The Future movie: "Mm. So, if I understands this correctly, this device allows you to cook when you feel like it, freeze the results, and then just 'unfreeze' something when you're not in the mood to chop and dice," I said, thoughtfully scratching my chin, really feeling like I'd actually had some sort of observant insight. "Yes, yes...I think I'll call this concept 'leftovers.', etc. etc. etc."

We're still not quite used to her, in that we keep forgetting to make "enough to freeze" of things. I made a very comforting Jewish chicken soup this weekend (my first ever using a whole chicken) but really only ended up with like two bowls' worth of leftovers. From tonight's chili there were no leftovers, which is just stupid.

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So tonight's dinner was black bean and duck chili with all the trimmings (actually all 3 trimmings: goat cheese, scallions, and raw sweet onions). It was superb, as it usually is, but there's a problem: I never use a recipe for it. I always try to write down what I did, but I never look at what I've previously written down. Here's today's version.

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duck and black bean chili.

+++

1 leg duck confit

250gr dried black beans
1 dried red new mexican chile
1 dried chipotle chile
1 bay leaf
1 tbsp epazote

2 chipotle chiles in adobo
1 tbsp ground cumin
1 tbsp fresh thyme leaves
1/2 tsp cinnamon
3 tbsp orange juice
1 tbsp tamarind concentrate
1 tbsp maple syrup
3 cloves garlic
2 shallots, diced
2 tbsp chile molido
1 tsp smoked pimenton

1/4 cup fresh mint leaves, minced

4 scallions, diced
1/2 sweet onion, chopped
goat cheese, shredded
sour cream

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better days will haunt you.

YouTube, Destroyer of Worlds. I just found this yesterday, one of my favorite songs by one of my favorite guitar bands of the early 1990s, the video for which goes a considerable way towards explaining why only a handful of 25-year-old men ever knew who they were. I think the highlight for me is the very Mara-like dance move at 2:51.

Why am I posting it here, yes, fine question. The video is haunting me a bit. Also to remind myself to remain alert for another NYC gig from them this year, so that I might place myself amongst the members of the audience. And the below is just to celebrate the glory of the Internets and for, well, Further Listening:

Chavez: The Guard Attacks/Unreal is Here (remastered) (MP3)

Chavez's "The Guard Attacks" is a song you would play for a Martian who wanted to know what electric guitars are for. It's only three minutes long, yet Clay Tarver and Matt Sweeney splatter the walls with power chords and explosive harmonics, surging from peak to peak. Plus, the words are funny ("Your uncertain age gives me the shakes"), and the drummer is a madman. -Rob Sheffield, Rolling Stone

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I made "my" black bean + duck chili tonight, photos n shit later maybe...but maybe not.

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nice cans. eeeiiaa!!!

Goldang, I've been posting like a house on fire. A house on fire that can barely speak English.

Speaking of which, we played Scrabble tonight and I felt lucky to be able to play any words in English at all...I had like 4 vowels the whole game. Pete had the opposite problem, and between the two of us we had no choice but to let that monkey woman walk off with the game.

Before that, we had a satisfying and educational dinner of cassoulet. From a can. I knew this was going to the case, it wasn't like Pete said "I'm bringing cassoulet!" and we got all excited and then he showed up with two cans. We were plenty excited anyway, because we figured the French wouldn't go through the trouble to do this and then fuck it up. Or would they?







































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"They" didn't fuck it up. Nor was it amazing, it was...pork, duck, and beans. Well-salted, plenty of fat as you can see.

















And it was plenty satisfying baked in the oven for a while and served with some crusty (and lightly charred...oops) bread. I must say I preferred the duck version, simply for the novelty of "duck 'n' beans" vs. the old standby of "pork 'n' beans". But what we should've done with both of them was to throw a shot of cognac in there and put some fresh-buttered bread crumbs on top before we baked them.

















But we didn't. Elsewhere, for nutritional reasons we included a green salad with pears, tarragon, and sugared walnuts, and for non-nutritional reasons we topped it with crumbled gorgonzola. Surplus gift chocolate for dessert.

kitty litter.

I'm catsitting at the moment, though so differently from the way I was catsitting back in August that one of the two should be called something different (the latter, I'm guessing). One of my charges this time around is Loki the Destroyer, and she plies her trade with truly exceptional craft. Things I wouldn't have guessed were movable at all have been strewn around the apartment as if by high winds. I no longer remember what the apartment looked like when I showed up, it's been madeover in the style of a feline monkey launching pad.

One of the books littering the floor this morning was Sri Owen's Indonesian Regional Cooking (in Dutch). It would've been downright cinematic if my stumbling across this "randomly" placed object would then lead me on a series of unexpected and (of course) humorous adventures having to do with Sri Owen, Indonesian cooking, catsitting, monkey launching, etc.

But instead I just took the book down to our apartment, put on my miner's hat (is there really not another word for these?) and tried to learn something from an Indonesian about Indonesian cooking. It's a good easy read for my Dutch, but who knows what it really sounds like to someone who speaks the language.

The first thing that my carbide lamp revealed was a rich seam of duck dishes, which was completely unexpected and great news: we do love us some duck (speaking of which, maybe someday I'll get around to writing about this lovely specimen [the duck]).

I'll come back to finish this entry with a duck recipe, but until then, Ms. Owen has an informative piece on rijsttafel here, complaining (justifiably) about advertisements for "traditional Indonesian rijsttafels" by restaurants in Indonesia (rijsttafel being a completely Dutch fabrication and not traditionally Indonesian at all).

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gulai itik (sumatran duck with green chiles).

4 duck breasts, thinly sliced
3/4 cup hot water

2 large green chiles, de-seeded and chopped
5 shallots, chopped
4 cloves garlic, chopped
4 candlenuts, chopped
2 tsp chopped ginger
1/2 tsp ground turmeric
1 tsp chopped galangal or 1/2 tsp laos powder
2 kaffir lime leaves, shredded
1-inch stem of lemongrass, outer leaves discarded, chopped
4 whole black peppercorns
4 tbsp thinned tamarind concentrate
2 tbsp peanut oil
salt to taste

Blend paste ingredients until smooth. Transfer the paste into a saucepan and simmer, stirring often, for 5 minutes. Then add the slices of duck, and continue cooking, stirring often, for 5 more minutes. Add the hot water, and bring the sauce to a boil. Continue cooking on high heat for 5 minutes. Salt to taste, and serve at once with rice.

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cassoulessons.

More time. Cassoulet is one of those dishes that doesn't respond especially well to 21st-century quickifying. It tasted almost twice as good this morning as it did last night.

More fat. I went light on the duck fat because some eG reports I'd read said that merguez gave off a bunch of fat (not duck fat of course that would be weird) when used in cassoulet. That didn't seem to be the case.

More salt. I was somehow afraid that my various salty meats would render things, eh...too salty. They didn't. We were still salting at the table, which I dislike doing.

More meat. The duck pretty much disintegrated, this was the one thing that Dean & DeLuca's recipe got right (they favor the Carcassone version over the Toulouse version), basically that duck is kind of wasted here: go with a lamb ragout instead as the other meat. Next time I will. If I did put some quackery in there, I'd leave it on the bone.

More juice. Yeah...the beans + meat had all this extra liquid until I took a nap before dinner and then they sucked it all up while I slept. Slept through my alarm, in fact, and woke up 15 minutes before guests and Mara arrived. Lucky for me I'd done almost everything before closing The Eye. But in its just-awoken state The Eye didn't realize the crucial liquid loss, did it. Bad Eye.

Better juice. Yes, my quick lamb stock didn't do the trick. Looks like I'll be making the real thing next time. This time I had to resort to the Secret Ingredients (my dad works there), which worked out fine.

Better beans. I just used "white beans", which were fine, but I'd like to see what difference is made by upgrading to Corona or Tarbais.

Bread crumbs=good. This was something that Dean & DeLuca got totally wrong...they said to skip the breadcrumbs. I didn't, I made my own and buttered them, they were one of the highlights from a taste, texture, and contrast perspective.

Green salad=good. The only accompaniment was a Caesar-ish salad, red wine, and crusty bread, and that was perfect. Camembert with Calvados for dessert.

Pre-dinner munch. I'd love to find something light that people could put their tooth on beforehand that won't fill them up. Olives are obvious...anything clean-tasting and vegetable-oriented would work fine...I'll keep an eye (but not The Eye) out.
I think that's it. No pictures this time after all...we'll call this a fact-finding mission. I learned a lot, and I'm glad to have gotten my first one out of the way. I think by doing the quick 'n' lazy version first, I really understand what elements would benefit most from a slower approach. By taking the more traditional route, cooking everything in one pot (vs. cooking all meats separately, separate stocks, etc.), what you end up with is essentially "just beans 'n' meat." Rarely a bad thing, but yes I can see how this could become more excellent.

built in a day.

So that I don't forget to finish reading it: Culiblog has what looks to be an excellent writeup of Euroforum’s Foodservice Congress 2007 posted over there.

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As one's obsessive food mind tends to do, mine has been ruminating over the details of cassoulet, specifically the selection of meats that will strut and fret their shit upon the stage of my slow cooker.

Right. So, I've been weighing the pros and cons of different carnivorous options, and, I know what you're thinking. Mark, please tell me you didn't go ahead and make a quick experimental cassoulet this afternoon for Phil's 2nd birthday party dinner (uh, it's his 2nd dinner...he's well into his middle years).

I wish I could tell you that, pal, but I can't. I thought Phil and Kathelijn would really enjoy it. So I whizzed downstairs and picked up some white beans, merguez, and bacon to go with the duck confit I already in the fridge. The meats were amazingly inexpensive: I don't buy merguez or any other sausage very often I guess, but I couldn't believe it...I somehow thought this was going to be a costly adventure. But cassoulet was peasant food, right? And damn peasants ain't got no dough. Excellent work, peasants!

So, I didn't make my own stocks, confit, or sausage. I browned all of the meats, made a very quick lamb and duck stock with my confit bones and a lamb cutlet I bought, added the beans, carrots, onions, and garlic, and a mess o' thyme and other assorted Frenchish herbs. A slug of vermouth, tablespoon of Calvados, lots of black pepper, and put the lid on the massive thing for 3 hours: since sausage is my main protein, I don't think I have to worry about overcooking the meats.

The picture above is of my steaming pot after an hour. It's got a ways to go, I may turn to the Secret Ingredient Shelf if my quickie stock doesn't cut it. More on this sham eventually, and real cassoulet pictures as well.

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il cibo dell'impossibilità.

Klary has a nice post today about the frequent impossibility of recreating on a whim ephemeral taste experiences from your past. And, unlikelihood of unlikelihoods, she illustrates this with (among other things) a quesadilla I made for her last month or so, and the process of trying to (on a whim) recreate that quesadilla. And by reminding me of that first quesadilla with her second quesadilla, her post reminded me of a third quesadilla from my own past that I myself cannot currently recreate.

Flashback to Miami, 5 months ago. In our little beach apartment we ate quesadillas for breakfast every morning (pictured above) for two weeks, because we could: the tiny, packed-to-the-gills Cuban grocery store around the corner had very fresh corn tortillas and excellent queso fresco. In the pan with a little butter, add to that a squirt of lime and a dollop of salsa verde and that's all you needed. No spices, no caramelization, no duck....no nothing, save for quesa and dilla (actually, the quesadilla pictured above also contains some leftover Argentinian steak from Big Pink, a one-time-only modification...).

And yes, it's impossible for me to make it this morning: no queso fresco, my corn tortillas are frozen and a bit old, etc. And plus, this negro ain't even supposed to be digging on cheese seeing as we're on some serious health food shit these days (sorry, Pulp Fiction was on TV last week [unsurprisingly uncensored, yay Nederland], reminding me just how much more acceptable it became for white people to adopt non-rap-derived African-American speech patterns after Jules Winnfield and Vincent Vega hit the screen. Or at least it became more acceptable for this particular white person). So, instead, here's the recipe for the not-so-impossible duck confit quesadillas.

Komijnekaas is young Gouda with lots of whole cumin seeds in it. It's a great shortcut for Mexican cooking in general, except that you don't get to toast the cumin seeds like you would if you were using them separately.

Also, this recipe probably makes more onions than you'll use, but you'll find a use for the leftovers, trust me. An omelet with chorizo is a good place to start.

+++

Photo by Klary:





















duck confit quesadilla with caramelized onions, komijnekaas, and salsa verde.

onions
2 sweet onions, diced
1-2 tbsp butter
1 tsp. maple syrup
pinch ground cumin
pinch ground cinnamon
pinch salt
1-2 tsp adobo from a can of chipotles

duck filling
100 gr duck confit meat (no skin), shredded
pinch pimenton
pinch ground cinnamon
half-pinch ground allspice
half-pinch ground cumin

corn tortillas
sliced or grated komijnekaas
walnut oil for frying (hazelnut oil also does nicely here, but yes they both smoke a bit. duck fat also works if you don't give a shit about cholesterol...butter for once doesn't really work with this quesadilla...too rich.)
ground cinnamon
mild chile powder

+++

Caramelize the onions: melt butter in sautepan, add onions, adobo, and maple syrup, stir to coat, add spices, stir again, turn pan as low as possible and cook for 20-40 minutes, stirring every 5 minutes or so, until onions are dark but not burned. Salt to taste and set aside.

Make duck filling: turn a sautepan on high, when hot add duck and spices. Saute for 5-10 minutes until duck is crisped and browned to your liking.

Assemble quesadillas: put a splash of walnut oil in the pan, then a tortilla, spread a thin layer of onions across it, then some cheese, then some duck (all thinnish layers so that your quesadilla is still rather light and flippable) and close. After my tortilla is closed, I like to sprinkle the outside with a very light dusting of cinnamon and chile powder. I'm not sure if this significantly contributes to the taste of the finished product, but this step definitely fills the kitchen with a most excellent scent-waft.

Serve with your favorite homemade salsa, or whatever reasonable store-bought salsa you were able to locate in Amsterdam. I tend to like green salsa with this for some extra acidity, but Mara prefers red, and it's worth trying both.

Another great variation on this is to use goat cheese instead of komijnekaas. I don't mean the soft stuff: they sell sliced goat cheese here that is perfect for this.

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And finally: all of the above reminded me of one of the fundamental reasons why this webpage even exists: to try and capture the ephemera of cooking and eating, and to facilitate future nostalgia over meals past (and not just the food component). I said to Klary after her post that it reminded me of why we like being cooked for, and one of the reasons travel can generate such powerfully nostalgic memories: because in many ways the whole experience is impossible to recreate, and that's what makes us nostalgic for it. Thank you, I'll be signing autographs after I get done punching my own pompous-yet-barely-coherent lights out.

x x x

haphazard defined.

It's as if I plated this during an evacuation of some sort. And yet I still had time to add my signature garnish of carelessly trimmed chives. It tasted a'ight: duck confit over wilted red cabbage and pistachios with a honey-mustard-tarragon vinaigrette.

Man, does that sound, um....fancy. It's not my fault. I'd planned on trying to recreate this amazing duck salad I had at Brasserie Le Coze in Atlanta 10 years ago, but by the time I got around to making dinner today, I'd lost the eye of the tiger and just kind of nudged this into formation.

UPDATE: Leftovers were better, probably due to the addition of duck bacon drizzled with maple syrup. C'mon, cabbage is good for you! And duck fat is healthy!

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And then these bitches showed up: from left, tarragon-sea salt, cassis, and cardamom bonbons.

duck, you sucker.

Goddamn, that's a cute fucking duck. How could I eat this? Well, here's my hypotenuse: I've never had a serious relationship with a duck, or really a bird of any sort. But you know I can sort of see why that's the case: what other species of animal is inconsiderate enough to crap on your head (unprovoked, I might add...I could totally see a cat doing this in a revenge-exacting context)? It's like birds are completely on some first strike shit...and frankly I think this backfires on them: it completely justifies my wanting them dead, as I would anyone who shat on my head (I think this perspective can also be specifically traced back to the Russian Lit Final Exam Head-Shitting Incident, which I'll elaborate upon later). And personality? Come on. There's no one home. Fetch! Nothing. If I meow at my cats, they'll fall down in their tracks and writhe around on the ground. Try that with a duck.

So it's for these reasons that I can continue to munch on them happily, regardless of their faux-snuggleability (which I'm pretty sure is nothing more than a [apparently ineffective] defensive measure anyway). However (and they'll be happy to hear this), I think I'm reaching the end of my recent French phase, a decision perversely enabled by my discovery that my local poelier Jonk (Haarlemmerstraat 53) has perfectly decent duck confit available by the leg (4 euro per). IIRC, a duck confit craving is what kicked this whole French fixation off a few months back, but somehow I never actually got around to buying or making any.

Or eating any. Until now! I tasted my first Jonk leg this morning for breakfast and it was everything I hoped for: very lean (you know, except for the fat that it was preserved in) and purely ducky. Really good.

One of the other great things about mister duck is that he submits dutifully to Mexican preparations: as a quesadilla or tamale filling for sure, and duck's affinity for corn, red chile, maple, and mushrooms would make it nice in some kind of dark saute over some sort of masa cake. But since I don't really feel like dealing with masa at the moment, maybe I'll try that idea over a grilled semolina cake called a harcha (I get them from Bakkerij Mediterrannee on the Haarlemmerstraat, here's a recipe). They remind me of cornbread, but you know, without corn. Here's the one I bought today:

















Another duck confit plus is that you can use the fat to cook with, and it's supposedly a bit healthier than butter or lard due to its high percentage of monounsaturated fats, you know the kind that supposedly help raise good cholesterol. We'll see about that.

In Googling Jonk and harcha I came across an interesting Dutch food site called Cheffen. At least it looks not totally useless. Or it may be totally useless, but at least it looks like genuine regional restaurant culture.

Anyway, here's what I'm actually going to do with my duck since I already have black beans made and also have some masa that I made for tamales (during an overly ambitious moment) that I'll use to thicken it. This recipe is not based on the Rough Creek Lodge's version, but I did look at theirs, here.

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duck and black bean chili.

1 skinned and defatted breast of duck confit, removed from the bone
1 garlic clove, chopped
2 cups cooked, seasoned black beans and their liquid
1/2 cup ancho chile puree
1/2 to 1 chipotle pepper, minced, or 1 tbsp adobo sauce from the can
1 tbsp ground cumin, freshly toasted
up to 1 cup chicken or duck stock
1 tbsp blueberry or blackberry preserves
1-3 tablespoons masa harina (optional)

garnishes:
1 sweet onion, diced
1/2 cup mint leaves, chopped


saute the duck meat in a skillet for 3-5 minutes to brown a little, add garlic for 1 minute, then add beans, chiles, and cumin. cook for 1 minute, stirring. add the stock and preserves, lower heat and simmer for 10 minutes. if it's still too soupy at this point, sprinkle the masa over top to thicken, and simmer, stirring, for 3-5 minutes. when you reach your desired consistency, you're ready to put it into bowls: top it with chopped onion and mint. and maybe a little crumbled goat cheese if you've got it hanging around as we usually do. and serve.

serves 2 probably.

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recipe lab: imagine...a blueberry.

Imagine...a blueberry.
Now....imagine it some more.
I never did like you.

-Terrill Soules.


File this post under work-in-progress. Aren't they all. Had one of my infrequent duck-eating experiences last night. The preparation was simple (briefly saute 1 cm-thick duck breast slices in a very hot pan to get some browning; add chicken or ideally duck stock, a couple splashes red wine vinegar, and a little cassis; reduce for 10 minutes or so, add chopped mint and whole blueberries, I believe), while the results were nearly amazing, definitely in a way that other birds never are for me. But I don't really want to start eating duck, do I? My little duck friends at the park would look at me differently, and they way they currently look at me is so cute that I don't think I'm ready to change our relationship. So I thought maybe I'd consider a non-duck version of a savory blueberry dish. By the way, here's a nice Slate article on the magic of a warm blueberry.

After poking about on Epicurious and Foodtv for non-dessert blueberry recipes, I entered all of the ingredient lists into the massively malfunctioning computer that is my brain, and threw out the obvious bonehead plays. While it's nothing at all like last night's duck (couldn't really find a featured player), here's one possible outcome. This might be hard to fully recreate since I can't remember if you can readily find ginger syrup in America. I imagine not, but reg'l'r ol' sugar'll do right fine.

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field greens with green apple, gingered almonds, feta, and blueberries.

two big healthy handfuls of young leafy greens
1/2 to 1 granny smith apple, chopped
1/2 to 1 red onion, thinly sliced
up to a cup of blanched almonds, lightly toasted and salted
you could also sub pecans for some or all of the almonds
1 to 2 tbsp ginger syrup (gemberstroop), or some darker sugar (palm, cane, etc.)

3/4 cup mild feta, chopped in 1cm cubes
2 tbsp fresh thyme leaves

1/8 cup walnut oil
1/2 cup balsamic vinegar
1/8 cup maple syrup

1 to 2 tbsp fresh mint, chopped fine
salt and pepper

Put the greens in a bowl. Toss with the onion and apple. Take the feta cubes and roll them in the thyme leaves to sparsley coat. You can also buy feta that already comes this way, that might be smarter/easier but the pre-herbed stuff always seems harsher. Add the feta to the bowl with the greens.

Make dressing: whisk together the walnut oil, vinegar, and maple syrup. Set aside.

Heat a dry saute pan on medium-low. Add the almonds/pecans and the ginger syrup or sugar, stirring constantly until the syrup or sugar dissolves and the nuts are caramelized and lightly crunchy. Add the nuts to the salad bowl. Sprinkle mint on top. Mix everything around a little and add dressing. Serves 2-4.

+++

This could also have gone the direction of a blueberry chutney (onions, thyme, balsamic, pecans, maple syrup) over a nice soft goat cheese and greens. Which is still a salad, really, isn't it. A bacon-eating person could probably add a little chipotle and a little bacon to this, replace the balsamic with cider vinegar, and have them a real nice carnivorous moment.

san fran flashback: ferry building + duck overload.

I postponed my SFO post because, well, immediately after returning, this whole cholesterol reduction scheme went in to full deployment mode and, frankly, the memories of what went down in the Golden Gate city were a little too fatty and overpriced to think about.

Ha. I'm mostly kidding about the "too fatty", since I'm the one who ordered the charcuterie of duck at Rubicon (which included duck prosciutto, foie gras, and duck paté, along with aged balsamico and toasted hazelnuts). And what am I doing eating at Rubicon anyway, if I'm so concerned about price? Freak.

All I mean is: comparatively, to consume this kind of food and wine in America, versus, say...Italy, the prices are dumbfounding. And yes, before anyone launches anything huge and nasty at me...there are things that creative, trained, (expensive, salaried) chefs (American or otherwise) can do that go well beyond the inherent but lower-priced gourmandism of your average Italian trattoria. And the SF farmers' markets are spectacular. And I love the artesian cheesemakers, etc. Inarguably, it's all part of what makes SF America's most appetizing city to live in. But is that why SF is such an expensive city? You pay for the privilege? Not just the food and wine, but especially the food and wine. No can do. Especially not if my tax dollahs would be funding the Poop Ship Destroyer (I'm referring of course to eh, uh, em, hm, ah, uh, Bush, and not Ween).

Maybe this is just sour grapes. Maybe it's because I know (hope) my expense account days are behind me, along with $14 glasses of wine, and the thought that kept needling me in the ear was, "Man, I don't agree with these prices and what they indicate, but nonetheless it sure would be nice to be able to feel good about dropping 200 bucks for dinner again."

OK, see why I postponed writing about this? I don't have it in me to continue to justify this rant, so I'll hit the mostly inexpensive highlights.

Ferry Plaza Farmer's Market. Saturday morning, Mara and I went for breakfast/lunch. An interesting slice of semi-urban upper-middle class SF weekend life.

We arrived far too hungry and irrational. I almost bought some fried asparagus, for example. Instead, Mara opted for a sausage bomb from Aidell's, while I went to Cocina Primavera and stood in a very long line for Oaxacan Red Mole Tamales.

Excellent stuff. These pictures of Mara in action are our vain attempts to recapture even a fraction of the glory that is "The Jimmy Picture".

I'll elaborate in a bit.

phoenix flashback: $13 dollar sandwich.

The restaurant's description: "applewood-smoked duck breast on marble rye with arugula, bacon, double cream brie and caramelized chipotle-granny smith apples, served with Robert's roasted root vegetable salad."

Me, cholesterol problems? Anyway, it was...really pleasant, sure, definitely. Smoky bacon, sour apples, sweet brie, bitter arugula, and ducky duck...something for everyone. And I wasn't paying, my lovely and glamorous mother was. But I always forget about stuff like this when I'm back in Amsterdam complaining about how expensive "food-that-should-be-cheap" is (Chinese, Mexican, Vietnamese...)

This wasn't even American-sized like my gargantuan and lovely "cup" of pozole I had a couple of days earlier at Mucho Gusto. It was just...rye bread-sized. A normal sandwich. I'd bet actual money you couldn't even find a 13 euro sandwich in Amsterdam. Tasted great, tho'....thanks, mom!